Chourouk Zarkaoui

My work addresses biopower and marginality. Through observation and questioning, I aim to deconstruct social and cultural assumptions. I study the impact of gendered language in Moroccan society; how it is easily assimilated with language of border control.

In Morocco, women are taught virginity is their only valid ticket to marriage, while men always carry a free pass. It is a cultural construct that was nourished by ideas of family honor, instrumentalization of religion and a society dominated by the male-gaze. 

The Moroccan women’s vagina and hymen are drawn as a border that cannot be trespassed until after the wedding day. Women need a visa (marriage) to discover their own territory: their body. In a time of border control, this is just another procedure expected from a patriarchal society.

For my final project, I interviewed 45 Moroccan women. I asked them to write a letter to their future daughters, discussing their relationship to their bodies and themselves. I ask them to reflect upon their behaviour and expected roles at home, on the street and by the state. These letters come together in a publication offering a different range of ideologies with one thing in common: the right of choice.